The Arizona sentinel., 1887-09-17
Su9-iR RiCATIoN.


 ciety to write paper on sub-irrigatiol
 1 will do so as far as my experience
 goes. Between two and three years
 ago 1 had pamphlet sent me by the
 Colorado Artesian Cement Pipe Com pany on sub-irrigation. I saw at a glance that it was a good thing for
 Colorado, If it would act as stated by
 their pamphlet) and was just what l
 needed on my place.
 l therefore purchased machine and
 the right to use it; this was in July, 1881. I had three ditches dug; about 1000 feet in all, sixteen inches deep and sixteen inches wide, on hillside facing north; twelve feet apart; the ground had partly been planted to squash and partly to grapevines, the squash had nearly all died out from drought, except a few hills, which had a little life left yet. One of my ditches was dug within two feet of six of these hills ofsquash. Pipes were laid, a plug inserted every twelve feet for outlets, the outlets. were surrounded with guards four inches inside diame- ter, raised six inches above the surface to keep dirt from outlets: pipes cover ed with soil to top of ditch, water turned in five days after laying pipe. Slaashes and grapevines seemed now about dead Judge of my sur prise or thegsfollowing morning; squash and grapevines had taken a new lease of life, and in a few days looked as if nothing had ever given them setback
 Tn the fall we gathered wagon load of fine squashes-variety, American Turlun and Hubbard. My grapevines
 made a growth of over ten feet-va ricty, Concord. So much tor my first experience in sub-irrigation.
 In 1885 I planted tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and Northern Giant mangol- wurtzel on same patch. All did well five feet around each outlet, and brought splendid crops; beyond that not so good. This proves that for sub irri- gating garden crops, laterals should not be laid more than eight feet apart and outlets the same distance-per- haps seven feet would be better; kind of soil, sand loam.
 In the spring of 1886 I planted the three rows to fruit trees and grape vines; one row to quince. All did splendidly; not one died.
 How I planted: I planted one tree within two feet of each outlet, and one row of grapevines between each row of trees. Kinds of grapevines planted, Brighton, Lady; Concord, Salem, Prem tiss, Duchess, Iona and Chasselas. All did well except Lady, which made a very slim growth. From one Concord vine, six -year-old, l picked this fall fifty pounds of splendid grapes through, sub irrigation. Time of irrigation, once in two weeks; let water run from one to one hour and half at each ir- rigation.
 1 hare, therefore, come to the con clusion that sub irrigation when prop erly applied is perfect success in Col orado I think a little improvement might be added by having the plugs in the outlets six inches in length, in stead of 2f inches, but I would par ticularly recommend the use of noth ing but the very best English Portland cement for making 3 pip9, as l have tried other kinds with very poor re- sults Some one will say, perhaps, if sub irrigation is such a success, why don't you use sub irrigation all over your place. To which I would say, because many of my apple trees are ten years old and many grapevines eight years old. l would be afraid in digging my ditches. of doing them a great injury by cutting too many roots but if 1 were to plant a new orchard and vineyard would, if possible, put every foot of it under sub irrigation.
 P. S.-This paper IS my own prac tical observations, and no theory of some one else. Sub-irrigation is just the thing for lazy man, because he can turn on the water, when irrigation IS needed, and go to the house and read his paper, and smoke his cigar, and when it has run long enough, he can go and turn the water off in about one minute, and weeds will not grow near as much where sub-irriga ion is 1Sed G